How do I get files off the hard drive of a fried, broken computer?

Question

Here's the deal. Last night we had a really bad lightning storm and, thanks to a huge electrical surge, and now my microwave, coffee pot thing, and above all, COMPUTER, won't work! (I borrowed my brother's laptop to post this haha)

Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone knew how I could get all my photos, videos, and other random things off my old computer. It won't turn on or anything, so my guess is that I will have to manually remove it... If anyone knows what to do, please help! My mom is a mess cause all her photos were on the old computer.

(It was a Dell Inspiron Desktop thing, running Windows XP Home...)

Answer 1

Take the Hard Drive and place it another computer. Just boot up Windows and go to My Computer and drag everything from your old Hard Drive to the new one. You will need another Desktop to do this though.

Answer 2

dude you fired the mother board but the hard drive will be cool, so firstly do you have acces to another desk top ?

if so  steps to take

1 remove the 2 screws on the back of busted pc they are big screws that hold the side panel on,then slide that panel off ( make sure power is off lol)

now you will see the dvd/cd drive and under it will be the hard drive  it will have 2 ribbon wires going in to it data cable and power cable, remove them ,the hard drive will more then likely be screwed in to the cradle too so remove screws

step 3 on the back of the hard drive is like 10 pins and it will have a connector on it joining two of the pins, it should tell you the position on the harddrive somewhere for where the pin should go for first or slave drive ok with me ?

you want to change it to slave drive then repeat steps in reverse order and put back in borroewed / spare desktop add it as a second hard drive there should be space then write all pics to disk and your done any other help with this email me [e-mail]

Answer 3

The first thing to determine is whether or not the hard disk is fried.

Your options:

1. Take it to a local computer repair store and have them check to see whether the disk works or not. They can also extract the data if it does work.

2. You could also power up the hard disk by connecting it inside a friends computer. Just connect the power supply cord and listen in to see if the disk is spinning or not. You should also feel some vibrations if its running. If the disk works, your chances of recovering the data are improved. You can get an IDE to USB cable or a SATA to USB cable, depending on the type of desktop that you have,

My recommendation would be to go with option 1, since these stores tend to have all the necessary equipment.

Answer 4

You can open your computer case, and you will find the hard drive.  It is positioned under the CD drive, and you'll notice that it is almost the same shallow rectangle shape, with no CD open/shut drawer.

Unloose the screws, and remove the hard drive.

Notice that it is attached to the IDE Ribbon that comes from the motherboard.

Also notice that it has a power-source plug-in.

Now, you can take the hard drive and place it into another computer.  You do not have to remove their hard drive.  There will be a second slot available, and also a second place on the IDE Ribbon to plug it into the other motherboard, and also a spare Power-source plug in.

For just "testing" purposes, you don't really need to screww the hard drive in hard to the other computer...just make it so that it doesn't flop around, and it is level.

IMPORTANT:  Before you touch anysting inside computer YOU touch metal to de-static yourself.  If you don't your body static can fry computer components.

Now when you turn on the second computer, YOUR hard drive will be recognized as Drive D:

You can find it this way:

RIGHT click START > left click EXPLORE >

in the left panel of the Explore Windows you'll see all the drives and files on that computer.

Look for YOUR Drive in positon D:

If it is not there, then it's a gonner.

So, if it is ok, you'll be able to click the little side + sign, and open all the files on YOUR hard drive.

Hopefully they'll allow you to burn your files you want to save onto CD's

-OR-

If you purchase a new computer, you can install your old hard drive as a second hard drive on the new machine.

If the hard drive is ok, you need to go back to the old computer and remove the power souce.  Big box with fan on it.  Take the power source to another computer, and have it tested.  Ususally a local computer fix-it shop will test it for free.

Lord only knows what else way fried on the old computer.  Time to consider a new one.  May as well upgrade your power if you do.  I'd stay with XP though.  I just like it better.

^j^

Answer 5

Hard drive transplant- move it into another computer.

If it's working, It'll show up as another drive.

It might just be the computers power supply that's fried- try swapping that out first.

Answer 6

may be u lost monitor only - or - power supply of system

anyway u remove the hard disc from burnt computer & fix it to another

u can take all data backup in cds or new hard disc

Answer 7

take your hard drive out. take off your case the whole nine yards, unscrew it. take it out. then unplug the large gray (or white cable) and the power cable (in other words unplug them both). then if  you have another computer put the hard drive in that one by pluging the same cables you took out into the hard drive again. but before you turn on the computer make sure you set the jumpers correctly to recognize it as a slave drive.

then turn on the computer. and go into my computer (or "Computer") if using vista and click on the hard drive you usually dont see it is most likely "D:" and pull the files off. or if you dont have another computer just take it to the geek squad. or your local computer store.

Answer 8

get a thing that lets you connect your hard drive of your broken computer to your computer and just drag the files over. i dont remember what the thing is called sorry. my friend used it on mine so...i know it exists

Answer 9

put all files needed onto a usb stick and move them onto ur new computer